24 May 2010 | Index Index, minipost
Quebec’s legislature has introduced a bill which could ban woman wearing the niqab face veil if they wish to access public services in the province. Public debate on the controversial Bill 94 has been suspended until August after more than 60 recommendations were received in the first three days of testimony. It is now unlikely that the bill will be voted into law before the end of the current legislative session in June.
19 May 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
Pakistan blocked access to Facebook today over the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day event on 20 May. A judge at Lahore’s High Court issued an interim order, which expires on 31 May when a detailed hearing will take place. It has been reported that some users are still able to sporadically access the site, whilst others are using proxy websites to circumvent the ban.
19 May 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
Security forces in Mauritania have banned veiled women from entering a courtroom where a terrorism case is being heard. Veiled women were also prevented from visiting the 20 defendants, who are accused of killing four French tourists in 2007 and attacking the Israeli embassy in 2008.
6 May 2010 | Uncategorized
Should the 1986 Public Order Act be used to curb homophobic speech by religious street preachers? A Baptist, Dale McAlpine, has been charged with causing intentional “harassment, alarm or distress” by describing same sex relationships as sinful. McAlpine was arrested after preaching from the top of a stepladder in Workington, Cumbria.
If you subscribe to the view that merely causing offence shouldn’t be deemed a genuine harm, as many defenders of free speech do, then this application of the 1986 law is morally indefensible. McAlpine’s sermon was certainly offensive to some, but it didn’t harm them. Hate speech, in contrast, is speech designed to cause its hearers real psychological pain. In some cases it can be more damaging than physical violence. If the law were used to curb this, there would be a better justification, though that would involve sensitivity to the details of each case. But there is little evidence that McAlpine was intending psychological damage to passersby. If anything, his intentions, though misguided, were benevolent.
There is a further problem with this case. The principle on which the arrest was made could be applied to just about any expressed view that listeners find offensive. Consistent application would result in the arrest of the Pope if he pronounces on homosexuality during his visit to the United Kingdom, but also of Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins if they speak out publicly against the Pope’s immoral behaviour in relation to paedophilic priests.
Moral, political or religious disagreement shouldn’t be re-defined as “harassment” — that’s the sort of shift of meaning that George Orwell warned us about long ago. Greater toleration of divergent viewpoints is the answer here, not censorship. False and offensive speech should be met with counter-speech, not a gag.
Nigel Warburton is the author of Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction, He will be blogging regularly for Index on the philosopical aspects of free speech contoversies
